


A Gentle Coercion

by AceQueenKing



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Break Up, F/F, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 09:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6368395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a child. </p><p>It should be a new beginning, but instead, it's the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gentle Coercion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BardofHeartDive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BardofHeartDive/gifts).



There is a child.

Benezia knows this, and stares at the line, unblinking, unyielding.

There is a child.

There shouldn't be, but the test does not lie: two lines, vertical and perfectly parrellel. 

She has bonded with Aeythyta a hundred thousand times, and there has never been a child concieved. She has always been careful to not lower that last barrier, to not let Aeythyta breath that most sacred of sanctums.

And yet.

There it is. The proof of their bonding, more so than any ceremony or piece of paper. 

There is a child.

Benezia curls her lip in fear. She puts a hand over her belly, attempting to feel the child -- how long has it been growing? What does she look like, feel like? A pureblooded child, a mistake -- the worse of child that she can offer no advice to, no sweet song. She has brought no genetics to this child; she has drastically increased the risk of her child turning into one of the night winds terrors.

There is a child. Benezia fears she is already not a good mother.

She closes her eyes, opens them, ignores the hot stream of tears that drip down scales. There is a child. 

Plans will have to be made, changes will have to occur.

She thinks of Aeythyta, hard at work on some colony or another, pumping whatever she can fight full of lead and death. 

She isn't ready to be a mother, barely out of her maiden stage.

And yet, there is a child.

She thinks of Aeythyta: big smiles, annoyingly brassy personality. She thinks of her reaction to the news and sobs. 

Aeythyta will be overjoyed. There is a child, and Aeythyta will squeeze her stomach and tell her it is the most beautiful thing in the universe. Aeythyta will call her buttercup and look at her with such pure love and Benezia feels herself wanting it, craving it, needing it.

But she will deny herself. There is a child. 

She feels naucious, her stomach burnin with shame for wanting what is so obviously untrue. She is not beautiful. She is not a buttercup.

She is a mistake, her womb carrying a child born to be mocked and pitied, as long as the child's pure-blooded nature is appearance.

There is a child. Benezia cannot let her daughter be doomed by her mistake.

It's a realization that leaves her cold. She can let her daughter grow in a loving household between two asari, knowing from the scorn of the society she inhibits that she is imperfect, or she can be the daughter of a single mother, whose father will be assumed to be more than the sum of her absence.

In the end, the choice is clear. There is a child. 

It takes a while to pack up - they've been together centuries, and even if she's leaving Aethyta she cannot abide leaving everything of her behind.

There is a child. She may not be able to tell Aethyta right away, but...Perhaps there is something of her she can pass down. 

She ignores the tears that burn her cheeks as she packs her clothes, her journals. She ignores the thought of Aethyta's smiling face burning in the glory of news she will never know. 

There is a child. She is a mother. The child's needs come first. 

She thinks about leaving a notice but cannot find the words—too bright, too powerful, too consuming.

 _There is a child_ , she thinks. _I'm sorry._

She closes the door and moves on, carrying her child and her baggage. She doesn't know where she's going, but she knows why.

There is a child. Benezia owes it to her to give her the best possible upbringing. 

She buys a ticket to Thessia, closes her eyes and lets tears stream down her cheeks unabashedly as she sits in her seat on the shuttle, her hand pressing against her stomach.

"I'm doing this for you," she repeats, over and over again, as if the prayer will protect her heart from being consumed by guilt.

There is a child. Benezia owes her the best possible shot at life, even if in doing so it causes her own unhappiness.


End file.
